The Department of Human Resources, Office of Child Support Services seeks reversal of a superior court order retroactively modifying a child support order during a civil contempt proceeding. We granted the Department’s application for discretionary review of the decision below, and we now reverse. Under certain circumstances, the Department is authorized by the Child Support Recovery Act to appear in judicial proceedings on behalf of the dependent child to enforce the child’s right to support. See generally OCGA § § 19-11-6 and 19-11-7. In this case, the Department is seeking to enforce an order that required Willie J. Gamble, the non-custodial parent of M. G. born 8/25/1988 and V. A. born 10/03/1990, to pay the accumulated arrearage from failure to pay $416 per month child support in accordance with an order entered in September 2000. In October 2005, in response to a financial review of the case as required by OCGA § 19-11-12, the Department recommended that the existing order should remain unchanged. The Department also recommended that Support shall continue until the child or each respective child attains age 18, dies, marries or becomes emancipated; provided that said support shall continue, without further order and without interruption, for any child who, on reaching age 18, is enrolled in and attending secondary school and is not married or emancipated, until such child completes secondary school or reaches age 20, but in no event past the age of 20, whichever occurs first OCGA § 19-6-15 e f. Current child support shall pro-rate through the last full day that current support was due. The Department recommended that child support arrears “should be repaid at the rate of $50.00 per MONTH.” On December 28, 2005, the Department petitioned the superior court of Fulton County to adopt its recommendation.
On February 6, 2006, the court entered an order noting that the parties had agreed to settle their case and had asked the court to adopt their agreement as the order of the court. The order provides that the previous order shall remain the same; that current support shall be $416 per month; that past due support was owed in the amount of $21,144.68 including interest as of September 30, 2005; and that past due support shall be repaid at the rate of $50 per month. The order repeated the Departments’s provision regarding continuation of support, quoted above. The court also ordered income deduction, effective immediately. Gamble consented to the order.
